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Well, count me in! To be upfront about this; I currently only have about three or four pieces I could contribute if you don't mind. This kind of site would certainly be interesting. Thanks.

Cool! You put one up, and I'll put my second one in. Unfortunately we cannot attach music files or even pdfs in this cheap forum (seeing that "free" is the main theme now), so what I did was use a (free) third party service www.sendspace.com as a place to upload and put the link in the forum. Perhaps our creator Stephen can think of a better way.

Thank you so much for the kind welcome. Please forgive me but I won't be able to do this until next week when I can get back to my computer with the files. I hope my examples won't be considered too rudimentary but I'm really interested in reviewing the work of some really gifted ears that have been applied to perhaps familiar music.

Along this line: I was just thinking that it would really be nice for users to provide an mp3 file of the music that was transcribed or at least to hear where the music was originally derived from. I like reading along with the sheet music as I'm hearing the audio file even if the music would be too difficult for me to ever play.

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"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." Andy Bernard

I don't see what the problem is. If you wrote a song, why would you complain if a group of pianists are liking your song and embellishing it with their own skills without profit, for sheer self-enjoyment? It means that you have succeeded in making people enjoy your music.

It also means that I, as the composer, am potentially denied the opportunity to market a transcription myself, or have someone do it on my behalf, as part of my business.

At least, that's how the law views it.

The ethics of the situation are complicated, and can be argued either way. I'm not going to make moral pronouncements -- if there is such a thing as a moral high ground, I doubt it's anywhere near where I'm sitting.

When I said 'If you can't be good, be careful', perhaps what I should have said is 'Be aware that you're openly discussing an unlawful joint enterprise on a public forum'.

It also means that I, as the composer, am potentially denied the opportunity to market a transcription myself, or have someone do it on my behalf, as part of my business.

What ever miniscule loss in revenue to the composer due to people trading transcriptions, if any at all, is nothing compared to the huge loss of profit the composer already experiences from the mass of people exchanging mp3s and the existence of videos of the songs on youtube. And remember, there are already free music sheets of the songs out there like sheetmusictrade, sheetzbox, etc... There people are gettting the music sheets (though rudimentary level) by the handful.

Anyway, as we are on a new page now, here is the link to the forum again, for people wanting to trade advanced transcriptions of radio hits:

I don't see what the problem is. If you wrote a song, why would you complain if a group of pianists are liking your song and embellishing it with their own skills without profit, for sheer self-enjoyment? It means that you have succeeded in making people enjoy your music.

Because you don't own the right to distribute the score. It's not yours to give away. All the rationalization about what you or someone else would do really doesn't matter. Do you have a legal right to give someone else the sheet music to a song that someone else owns the rights too?

Because you don't own the right to distribute the score. It's not yours to give away. All the rationalization about what you or someone else would do really doesn't matter. Do you have a legal right to give someone else the sheet music to a song that someone else owns the rights too?

If advanced arrangements of songs don't exist, and transcribers cannot sell them or even give them away for free, then how can people get advanced transcriptions of the songs they like? I will be 80 years old before I can transcribe every song I like. And a lot of people cannot transcribe or can't make the time to.

This topic makes me wonder which I always have about Wedding Singers or Garage Bands that do covers. How about the band or singer at the local Holiday Inn or the local fair or restaurant or nursing home or the busqer(sp?) who earns income from the latest pop and rock and etc songs or playing any music copyrighted over the last 50 or so years?

In the USA, if a venue such as a restaurant or bar is hosting music, the venue has to buy a yearly license from an outfit like ASCAP, which allows the bands/performers to play any music that might be copyrighted.

Buskers and nursing homes and Wedding performers are not on the radar screen as far as I know.

So there are daily reports of which exact songs were played in every restaurant and bar across the USA so ASCAP can pay the right author?

I wonder how that works...

Good question . . . this is all I could find, which does not directly answer your question, unfortuntely:

Quote:

ASCAP collects licensing fees from users of music created by ASCAP members, then distributes them back to its members as royalties. In effect, the arrangement is the product of a compromise: when a song is played, the user does not have to pay the copyright holder directly, nor does the music creator have to bill a radio station for use of a song.In 2008, ASCAP collected over US$933 million in licensing fees and distributed $817 million in royalties to its members, with an 11.3 percent operating expense ratio.[1] In the United States, ASCAP competes with two other PROs — Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) and the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC).

A nonprofit that rents its space to folk dancers here in NM was "caught" by, I believe, BMI and they now pay fees. The folkdancers use cds they personally own, but since the dances are open to the public legally the fees are owed. The playlists aren't turned in. I don't know how the fee company splits those royalties, since they're pretty obscure. Perhaps there's a category of obscure music that gets distributed by pro-rating of some kind.

I have no idea whether the various kinds of senior venues I play at should have a license - is the locked Alzheimer's unit a private residence or a public place? I don't know how the law is written. I don't know whether they, or the national corporation that owns them in some cases, have a license. But I can certainly envision a couple of them legally needing one. And again, it hasn't got to do with whether the performer is paid or not.

And I'd guess that your school, or school district, legally should have one. But I don't know all the ins and outs of the law. C'est la vie

Is it a nuisance? Why, yes it is. Does it cover fairly innocent uses of music? Why, yes it does. But many laws do the same. It's simply not possible to legislate for every individual situation, so in some ways laws will be overly broad. C'est la vie.

Didn't the Girl Scouts win? I'll have to look that up.

Cathy

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CathyPractice like you are the worst; play like you are the best - anonymous

That explains ASCAP in general. But not the mechanism for paying each original artist.Just wondering if the songs are actually tracked.Or if it's a "oh we've done some statistical business calculations and we KNOW we got it right - here Mr. Springsteen" sort of thing.

Well, anyways, this is copyright of performance.Which is different than copyright of sheet music, i think?

So although ASCAP is taking care of performance rights,it's not keeping track of the musicians that may have stolentheir sheets.

What bugs me is when a song has no sheet music availableand =I= don't have decent transcribing skills.So I guess transcribing is something to DEFINItely look into.Well, time to hit google.If any of ya have good tips on transcribing, this would bea great thread to list em in

Ah. From what I can tell, the Girl Scouts pay a nominal fee of $1/year. So ASCAP has served notice they are legally due fees, but saved public face

There are several forms of rights - copyright, performance, and mechanical for three. The mechanical is for making cds of your own performance, etc. I think there's a "you have to let me make a cd of my performance" clause once any one at all has been allowed to do so.

Again, some venues do turn in playlists. And some are probably statistical.

Cathy

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CathyPractice like you are the worst; play like you are the best - anonymous

What bugs me is when a song has no sheet music availableand =I= don't have decent transcribing skills.So I guess transcribing is something to DEFINItely look into.Well, time to hit google.If any of ya have good tips on transcribing, this would bea great thread to list em in

There is no transcribing forum. I personally had to get ear training to learn how to transcribe. EarMaster allowed me to recognize chords, and most of the radio hits out there consist almost entirely of major, minor, and 7th chords (but you still have to learn the other chords, because they do pop up every now and then). Don't always trust the guitar tabs out there, sometimes they are inaccurate and you will often see different "chord experts" giving slightly different answers.

Once you get the melody and its rhthym correct (I use an mp3 slowing device for fast songs), then the chords pretty much complete the transcription. Any bass melody is often just broken chords. Chords attached to the melody are usually just echoes of the current chord until the next chord change. Many songs we like share the same chord progressions. A good thing is that our voice tends to be good at transcribing melodies. Sing the melody and then play chords as you sing. You can get the correct chords that way too because if the chords match your singing, it is often correct. With practise you will be able to play the correct chords on your first guess as you sing.

The main challenge for me is instrumental melodies in the bass that is not a broken chord. They are sometimes really hard to hear because of higher, different melodies going on at the same time. I'm searching for a good program that makes the bass stand out, but so far the ones I've tried are not doing as well a job as I want. So sometimes I just make up the bass melody that seems to fit the upper melody. Some composing skills are required in transcribing as well. When you look at some advanced transcriptions, you will often find instrumental melodies that actually don't exist in the real song, but they do make it sound better for piano solo.

Math Teacher this transcribing and arrangements for piano solo is a good idea because of course just the variety of music that isn't in piano solo arrangements because they only make a few piano solo books. Sounds like its not difficult to stay in legal copyright lane.

I guess I'm a little off topic.

Rocket and all thanks. Nursing homes, restaurants, weddings, funerals, churches and just all the places you see live modern music I have wondered about.

Question: Would you think a transcription would be a copyright violation if there is no sheet music available for the recording? I really like the idea of a transcriber's website for music we've heard and love but knew there was no sheet music available anywhere? Check out the website. You might like it.

Question: Would you think a transcription would be a copyright violation if there is no sheet music available for the recording

Think about it this way:

There are no plans published for how to build a Ferrari. Does that mean (since those plans are missing) that Ferrari is not allowed to come after you for publishing them yourself?

Anything the publisher could have done (like publishing an advanced arrangement) but chose not to do, it's still their right to stop you from doing it. They want two things: money, AND full control. (Myself, I believe they deserve the money and the control, but not for nearly as many years as they have it now.)

It also means that I, as the composer, am potentially denied the opportunity to market a transcription myself, or have someone do it on my behalf, as part of my business.

What ever miniscule loss in revenue to the composer due to people trading transcriptions, if any at all, is nothing compared to the huge loss of profit the composer already experiences from the mass of people exchanging mp3s and the existence of videos of the songs on youtube.

Maybe so. But my response was about the legality of the situation, not the ethics or the business justification.

This topic makes me wonder which I always have about Wedding Singers or Garage Bands that do covers. How about the band or singer at the local Holiday Inn or the local fair or restaurant or nursing home or the busqer(sp?) who earns income from the latest pop and rock and etc songs or playing any music copyrighted over the last 50 or so years?

In the UK (and I suspect elsewhere), there is an element of 'don't ask, don't tell' about the way copyrights are enforced. There are certain circumstances in which copyrights are routinely infringed, but it's not in anybody's interest to pursue the infringer.

The copyright agencies don't go after churches, for example. I imagine that wedding bands benefit from the same kind of amnesty, even though what they do is probably unlawful. It remains unlawful in the UK to copy your CDs to an ipod, but (so far as I know) no action has ever been taken.

I doubt that any of this is done out of generosity to the consumer. Rather, the copyright owners don't want to do anything that will promote a Girlscout-style backlash, and possibly get the law changed in a way that doesn't suit them. The CD-copying thing is a good example -- the law in this area is so stupid that, if matters ever came to a head, it's hard to imagine there not being substantial changes in favour of the consumer.

I'm in favor of the transcription site as I've often been annoyed by the fact that a typical guitarist has a multitude of websites offering tabs. A guitarist wants to learn the chord voicings and solo for one of this favorite songs and they're there for him to learn from. I often thought how nice it would be to have a website for keyboardists that would allow the same. As MathTeacher has alluded to; I've seen some pretty lame arrangements of good songs that have been "dumbed down" with a bare minimum of authenticity to the recording. How is it that these guitar tab websites have been able to survive in spite of copyright concerns from some people?

Believe me, in my lifetime I've spent a lot of money for sheet music. Before the internet I would be at the mercy of our local music store for ordering sheet music and then have to wait for what seemed an interminable amount of time to receive it if the music was even available. Yes, I will still buy music if I need to but access to transcribed music seems like a wonderful situation for us. I supposed one could assume a dogmatic stance on this about copyrights but if a person does, one could also ask; have you ever viewed a burned copy of a movie that a friend had made for you? Have you ever listened to a burned CD of music a friend has made for you to listen to? Have you ever burned a CD of music that you did not purchase? If you have refused to do this due to a conscious decision not to violate copyright laws, my hat's off to you for your integrity. You're a better person than me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that a person can't have it both ways. I hope I'm not coming across as being too critical or as a person with absolutely no morals but perhaps this issue as pertaining to learning more music isn't always a black and white matter.

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"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." Andy Bernard

How is it that these guitar tab websites have been able to survive in spite of copyright concerns from some people?

They haven't, necessarily. Look what happened to OLGA. In practice, these sites disappear and reappear quite a bit, for various reasons. I suspect that guitarists are better-served in this respect because there are more of them than pianists.

Quote:

Believe me, in my lifetime I've spent a lot of money for sheet music.

I've spent a lot of money on food over the decades, but I don't expect I'll get away with shop-lifting groceries next time I'm hungry Sorry, but I couldn't resist that

Quote:

I supposed one could assume a dogmatic stance on this about copyrights but if a person does, one could also ask; have you ever viewed a burned copy of a movie that a friend had made for you? Have you ever listened to a burned CD of music a friend has made for you to listen to?

I can't speak for anybody but myself, but I'm only dogmatic about the legal position. The ethics of the situation are complex, and there's room for reasonable people to disagree.

I do think, however, that people often don't think the ethical issues through that carefully. Many people and organizations are campaigning for a more consumer-oriented approach to intellectual property law. But the key word in 'intellectual property' is _property_. Any argument for a change to IP law that is founded on a lack of respect for, or understanding of, property has no credibility and, in the end, weakens the cause.

And some churches do have licenses - I don't think there's a blanket kind of "we don't enforce."

I doubt it's in anybody's charter, no. And the MPA specifically issues copyright guidance for churches. Nevertheless, I'm unaware of any action being taken against a place of worship, and I've seen tangential references from agencies like the MPA to an unwillingness to do so. Of course, that doesn't mean that they won't change their stance tomorrow.

In practice, a vast number of infringements are tolerated, either as a matter of (unpublished) policy or simple expediency.

I can't speak for anybody but myself, but I'm only dogmatic about the legal position. The ethics of the situation are complex, and there's room for reasonable people to disagree.

Thank you, kevinb. I'm still mulling all this over. You're right; as far as the absolute letter of the law, it's black and white. As Cathy stated, the ethics involved are a separate issue and on that point everyone has to make their own decision.

It would be interesting see a correlation on whether a person is able to trancribe or not and which side of the fence they'd be on concerning the ethics.

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"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them." Andy Bernard

The school I teach at plays a radio hit every morning over the PA system before class, and it does it without paying the artists. How could I work at such a corrupt place?

I would guess that the school, or the school district, has a license. There are too many opportunities to play music in school for it to go unnoticed.

Such as school dances and proms, music at sports events and rallies, music played by the school band, battle of the bands, talent shows, plays, etc.

At my son's high school, they charge for every music production. Multiply that by the 30 or more schools in just this district alone, and I am sure that the powers that be have come knocking for a license.

Remember, there's copyright on the playing of the music andthere's copyright on the "source code" - the sheet music (or midi file).(Or are these the same copyright? I think they're different?)

I'd think it likely that schools pay a place like ASCAP for the rightto PLAY music. (And, mmm, SOMEhow the original artist gets money forthis even though I find it hard to believe every song is recorded soASCAP knows who to pay.)

But when my son was taking trumpet, I never had to pay for the sheetmusic he'd come home with. I bought the "intro to trumpet" book.But I saw plenty of photocopied sheets and was never asked to payfor em...

So although the law states otherwise,my opinion (which counts for nothin) is thatif the sheets/midi aren't for sale, then learning to play and compose trumps copyright.if they are for sale, of course, buy em.

In the case of the public school trumpet teacher, though,I think he (ideally) should have charged the parents forthe sheets. As most looked pretty professionally published.

It would be interesting see a correlation on whether a person is able to trancribe or not and which side of the fence they'd be on concerning the ethics.

In my view, the ethical question is complicated by practical concerns that are hard to assess. My own ethical views are pretty Benthamite -- if it helps me and hurts nobody, it's probably OK. If it helps somebody else and hurts nobody, it's definitely OK

But where intellectual property is concerned, whether it 'hurts nobody' is extrememly hard to assess.

The OP for this thread started off asking about _selling_ transcriptions. It seems to me that if something can be sold, then it could (in principle) be sold by the original rights-holder, and that puts the activity on ethically shaky ground. If it's something that couldn't economically be sold, then perhaps nobody is losing out if somebody makes it available free of charge.

My gut feeling is that privately circulating piano transcriptions of pop songs, particularly those not available for sale, does very little harm to anybody. If I had nothing worse than this to answer for on Judgement Day, I would be happy.

FWIW I can make piano arrangements of pop songs and the like, if nobody is in any hurry. I'm not hugely efficient at it and, as time is money, I'd rather buy it if I can and save myself the hassle.